Wind-Driven Snow Covers East Coast, Snarls Traffic on Ground and In Air
December 28, 2010
The three major airports connecting New York with the rest of the world resumed flights after the worst December blizzard in sixty years left travelers struggling in waist high drifts and 60 mile per hour winds.
Central Park recorded twenty inches of snow by Monday morning, the most the park has received since 1948, so says the National Weather Service. The skies were clear Monday Morning over New York but the agency issued further snow warnings to residents in Boston and up into Maine. The storm put a major damper on after-Christmas sales and it may take retailers at least two weeks to recover from lost sales.
New Jersey was the epicenter of the storm. Bergen County received as much as twenty-nine inches of snow by Monday morning – shattering records there. That county reported wind gusts of up to 70 mph in some areas, which made travel all-but-impossible. Local television and radio stations were cautioning people to stay at home and not to venture out on streets and roads. Most took heed but many did not and ended up being stuck in waist-deep snow and being forced to leave their vehicles on roadways.
Thousands of flights were canceled all across the East Coast, causing air traffic delays country-wide on one of the most traveled holidays in the United States. Amtrack cut its service to a large portion of the East as did several bus lines due to high drifting and winds that would not subside. The storm dumped snow as far south as parts of Jacksonville, Florida which delighted some but caused many problems on roadways as snow tires are not used in that portion of the country.
The snowfall totals were large but the Blizzard of 2010 did not bring the Northeast entirely to its knees. Schools were already closed for the holidays and in many cases parents already had time off from work. Public officials in numerous states told people to stay at home, but in fact, millions already had planned to. In other words, it could have been far worse so the timing was a blessing in a way but a nightmare for the hundreds of thousands of people who were attempting to make it back home after being away for Christmas.
